Chapter 5 #2
Just because she’s mates with my sister and I had to take a bunch of photos of them crying all over campus yesterday doesn’t
mean I’m going to soften toward the American—even if Cliona ordered me to be nice to her before I left.
“We’ve never lived in different cities before, and now we’re about to live in different countries,” Cliona says, her voice
tight with emotion as we wait for the bus that’s going to take me to the airport this morning.
“You need to look out for yourself, alright?” I frown at her, my body tense with worry. “Don’t go out partying too much with your new team. And stick with the no-dating policy for now.”
“Ah, go on,” Cliona bites back. “I don’t need you to tell me that. Don’t forget, before your growth spurt, I was the one fighting
your bullies off, not the other way around.”
“I’d never forget that, Sunny.” I exhale heavily and call her by the nickname our gran gave her when we were kids. I don’t
use it often, but it feels fitting when it’s such a monumental moment for both of us.
“We’re going to do a video call on our birthday in a couple months, okay?” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “So we can
do our cake together like always.”
A knot forms in my throat. “Gonna be hard to blow out each other’s candles on a video call.”
“I know, but we’re growing up. We had to miss a birthday together eventually.”
I huff out a noise of discontent. “You’ll be careful though, yeah? Don’t walk alone late at night and all that.”
“In case you didn’t know, I’m about to play rugby professionally and can look out for myself, ya eejit.” She flexes her bicep
at me before pulling me in for a hug. “And please be nice to Everly. I know she’s a lot, but if you give her a chance, you’ll
find out she’s the perfect amount of too much.”
“If you say so,” I grumble under my breath, my shoulders tightening at the mention of her name.
“Go on, then. Your bus is pulling up.” She breaks our hug and gives me a hard push. “Go kill it for those Grizzlies, Moon.”
“You go kill it for Leinster, Sun.”
Regardless of what my sister said about being nice to Everly, I’m not letting this American girl natter on for the ten-hour
flight from Dublin to Denver. I’ll park myself in the toilets if I must. Being nice doesn’t mean I have to talk to her nonstop.
So, to make my boundary clear, I slide my headphones over my ears and yank my hood down across my eyes and prepare to do what I always do: ignore the girl that I met years ago in a business marketing class. The girl who was a pushy pain in my arse then and still is a pushy pain in my arse now.
Though admittedly, she was easier to avoid when I was just staring at her from a distance.
Everly
I’ve never been a good plane sleeper. I can’t seem to get my brain to shut off. I just think about too many things. My doctor
back home gave me a few sleeping pills a couple of years ago, but I swear they’re horse tranquilizers because the few times
I’ve tried them, I don’t remember getting off the plane.
So now I reserve those pills for the minute I arrive home and want to sleep like the dead for eight to twelve hours.
Which means I’m spending this ten-hour plane ride just thinking away. About people, about things I’ve said to people, things
other people have said to me. I think about when the next meal is coming around and the fact that I seem to be the only one
on the plane not sleeping. I think about my job and my future and my family and what it’s going to be like living on a mountain
with them and Cliona’s hot, scary brother for an entire summer.
This plane ride in particular, I’m also thinking about how massive Wolf’s thighs are. He wore athletic shorts on the plane,
which just seems weird to me. Too exposed. Too casual. How is he not cold? I’m tucked under a blanket with thick, fuzzy socks
on, and I’m freezing. But he’s just letting all that man muscle hang out. I wonder if his buffness has him always running
hot? Maybe extra muscle is like a built-in heating blanket? He certainly looks warm.
His thigh tattoo is interesting as well.
It’s an intricate portrait of a wolf howling at a moon, with Celtic knots wrapped all the way around his gigantic thigh.
I assume the wolf has something to do with his nickname, and the moon has to do with the sun/moon labels his grandmother gave him and his sister.
Does he like his grandmother more than his mother?
I wonder. It’s hard to tell. Cliona has shared some of the tension with her overworked parents, but Wolf here feels like a mystery I’d like to unravel a bit more.
There’s also what looks to be some GPS map coordinates inked in his tattoo, and I can’t help but wonder where they route to.
Is it an invasion of privacy to type them into my phone to find out?
I’d love to ask him what it all means, but the guy has been passed out cold since takeoff. He missed meal service and snack
service. Lucky for him, I accepted his food and tucked them into the seat in front of him so he can eat it when he wakes up.
His neck is totally going to hurt tomorrow. I can’t help but rub my own neck in response. Why did he never lay his seat down?
Such a waste of a good business-class spot. Cliona texted me to look out for him because he’s never been outside of Ireland.
But it’s kind of hard to look after someone who literally doesn’t even show up to the gate until the last minute and who willingly
puts his sports player body in such an uncomfortable position. Does he just not care about being early for an important flight?
Or is he just keen on avoiding me for as long as possible? I’m going to guess the latter.
Wolf’s head jerks out of nowhere, and he groans a deep, rumbly noise, his brows furrowed as if in pain. This is ridiculous.
He needs to lie back, even just a little. He has to start that rugby camp in a couple of weeks. He can’t be all messed up
from a long flight.
Taking matters into my own hands, I unbuckle my seat belt and crawl onto my knees to lean over the partition between our two seats so I can access his chair controls.
Holding my breath, I bite my lip as I push the button and pray like hell he’ll sleep through the decline, but I am wrong. So very wrong.
With a grunt, Wolf shoots up like he’s been punched in the gut as he catches me with my finger on his controls. His sleep-filled
eyes gape at me like I’m a kid he busted breaking into his cookie jar, and I feel one inch tall in this moment.
God, why am I like this? Why did I care if his neck would hurt? Why didn’t I let sleeping dogs lie instead of poking the grumpy
wolf with a stick?
I huff out a strange laugh. “Sorry . . . it’s just . . . your neck looked cramped, and I didn’t know if you knew how to lay
your seat flat, so . . .”
My voice trails off as he glowers back at me and slides his headphones off his ears. “I don’t need your help, Stretch.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and turns away from me while I sit there with my lips parted, staring back at him in shock.
The asshole does remember me from class. That’s the same nickname he pegged me with my first year here, but he hasn’t used it since because
he’s been too busy . . . pretending not to know me? What the actual fuck? That is crazy work on its own. But couple that with
the fact that he’s been nothing but dismissive to me for my entire last year of university, and I’m so very done tiptoeing
around this Irish jerk. He’s not a misunderstood bad boy. He’s just a fucker.
With a huff, I jab my finger into his shoulder so he’s forced to look at me. “I knew you remembered me. Why have you been
acting like you don’t?”
His stormy eyes are slits as he glances down my body in a way that makes me feel unnerved. “I haven’t been acting like anything.
Just let me sleep.”
He turns away again and prepares to pull his headphones back up over his ears, but I am not done.
This man will not mistake my kindness for weakness.
I grew up with fucking mountain men uncles, okay?
Not just uncles, but like . . . grown-ass men who let me drive my first ATV at age eleven and told me to aim for the trees because they would slow me down.
I am not the pushover that Wolf might think I am.
I reach over and yank his headphones off, which doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to do because his nostrils flare with
agitation, and that muscle in his big, square jaw twitches.
God, I really hate how hot he looks when he’s angry. And considering he’s angry all the time, he pretty much always looks
hot, which is just how it goes for men. They get to be brooding and sexy, while women get labeled with a resting bitch face
if we’re not always smiling.
Unfortunately, Conri Wolf Reilly is the epitome of brooding hot. His face is angular and striking, his brown eyes the color
of watered-down whiskey. Not to mention, there’s something guarded in the way he looks at you. Like he’s seen you naked and
is judging every square inch of you. The only thing is, I can’t tell if he’s judging in a good way or a bad way.
And that mouth of his. It makes my insides clench. It’s sharp lines and threatening twitches that deliver perfectly harsh
replies. But his lower lip has a mind of its own. It’s full and soft—completely at odds with the rest of his cruel face. It
gives a hint of suppleness that makes you wonder how it would feel pressed against your mouth, your neck, your breasts, your . . .
I expel a strange breath as I realize just how far my thoughts got away from me. Maybe it’s the stress of not knowing what’s
coming next. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for punishment. Either way, I am not ogling my best friend’s grumpy brother. I’m here
to give him a piece of my mind.
“I would love to leave you alone, Wolf, but in case you didn’t know, your sister asked me to help you out with this job, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”